Nothing's Like Before
by fireflyofhell
Summary: He knows it's stupid to care about her. He is selfish because he has to be. But whenever she is involved, nothing is ever logical. OOC and possibly AU


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Grimm! If I did I'd have Adalind Schade be a more sympathetic character!

**A/N:** So I had to write a short Grimm drabble after I finally started watching the show. And then this lil' fluff bunny had to be written, since there aren't that many Renard/Adalind fics out there to begin with… That and I really like the pairing of course. Major liberties taken with certain facts, so beware.

* * *

**Title:** Nothing's Like Before

**Summary:** He knows it's stupid to care about her. He is selfish because he has to be. But whenever she is involved, nothing is ever logical. OOC and possibly AU

**Pairing:** Sean Renard and Adalind Schade

**Rating:** M for sexual content

* * *

He is ten when he meets her.

After his mother fled with him in the middle of the night, they change appearances, names, identities, including a continent to evade detection. His mother fears that their blood will make them targets, and makes him fearfully promise to never woge, so he does not end up back with his father.

He is ten, unsure of why, but for his beloved mother, he promises everything. He has never broken that promise until he met _him_.

But this is not a story about _him_. It is about him and her. The "her" he knows before she opens her eyes and is the second person to greet her in the world.

Her mother helps his as needed. On occasion, her mother lets him feel her kick (she isn't even born yet) when they both are at her house. He is delighted of course. He considers himself a big kid now, prepared to protect her from the likes of _him_ (though he has never met any of _them_).

/\

When he sees her for the first time, he thinks she is too tiny.

Long lashes frame her eyes, some blonde fuzz on her head, and most importantly, she smells funny.

The mothers laugh; for it is such a child-like response (he says he's a big boy).

His finger rests in her tiny hand, gripping it tightly. And in that moment, unwittingly, he falls in love.

/\

She is three, he is thirteen.

She follows him around everywhere, asking him for piggy-back and airplane rides whenever her mother is not in the room. Hexenbiests are prim and proper, her mother says. They don't make demands of Royals.

She pouts, and ignores her mother whenever possible.

He acquiesces (though grudgingly because he is a teenager) and gives her a piggy-ride.

She giggles when he pretends to be a knight in shining armour, rescuing her from _him_ (still hasn't seen one yet), the dragon. Her tiny arms, so fragile and delicate, are clutched around his neck as he goes around her house.

There is no one but them in their world when this happens. They are carefree, unburdened by society's ills, and safe, two people drawn together by natural means without regards to status and propriety.

/\

He is sixteen and she six when she tells him in all her six years of maturity that she wants to marry him when she grows up.

They are curled up on her bed, reading a bedtime story when this occurs. She holds a small dog that he gave to her last year when she started having nightmares tightly in her arms as he reads to her.

He spends a lot of time with her. His mother is never around. At school, things are difficult. Being smart is not acceptable in junior high no matter what his mother says. He feels gangly too, since he has shot up in height over the past three years.

Startled, he shuts Albträume für Wesen Kinder (he skips over the bad parts) and looks at her strangely before patting her on the head. He gets up to put the book back on her shelf, bides her good night, and leaves.

It is the final time they read together before she falls asleep.

/\

He is seventeen and she is seven when they lower his mother's body into the earth.

It is a beautiful sunny day. He is angry that it is not raining. The world should be mourning with him instead of mocking him for this loss.

She slips her small hand into his, unsure of whether or not he will reject her. She is starting to understand the difference between boys and girls, and knows that it might not be appropriate.

He lets her. After all, he is leaving for college soon on the East Coast in a few months.

/\

They don't see each other for the next five years. He stays on the other side of the country, focusing on his studies as she starts to slowly mature.

But that doesn't mean he forgets her completely. He sends her a gift every October 15, wishing her happy birthday.

Aside from that one action, he drowns himself in academia and pretty girls, losing his virginity to a flatmate, who teaches him what is conducive to fucking, _not lovemaking because it means nothing to him_, and pleasing a woman. There is no end of selection for him. _He is TDH_, whispers his classmates: Tall, dark, and handsome.

Throughout all this, he doesn't realise every time he fucks a girl, she is blonde haired and blue eyed. Even when he studies abroad his third year abroad and meets one of the Royals and starts a relationship with her, he is still unable to forget.

/\

He is twenty three and she thirteen when he hears a knock on his front door.

He's moved back to Portland for the time being, unsure of what do to with his life and his degree.

He opens it expecting to see the delivery man (with his new furniture), only to sees her again at his front door, tears streaked across her face.

She has grown up and become so lovely that he is taken aback. Hexenbeists are known for their beauty, and he has been surrounded growing up by them. But she still takes his breathe away.

She runs into him, clutching him as she weeps. He doesn't know how to deal with crying women, since he has always walked away before he got in too deep. He (miraculously) gets her into his living room, sits her down, and somehow gets the story of what happens to her.

She woged for the first time, she tells him. She is ugly and creepy. She worries that no boy will like her _(a stab of jealousy pierces through him),_ and she will die alone, a virgin at ninety with a house full of cats.

He comforts her in the same way he did when she was a child, holding her as she starts to hiccup from crying.

But this time, it's different. He knows it, even if she does not.

It is there, in his living room bereft of furniture, that she woges for the second time and he steals her first kiss, ugliness and all.

/\

He runs off to Vienna after that, rekindling his Royal relationship.

He is scared. He is her senior by a decade, ten years of experience and jadedness. Ten years is a gulf between a teenager and an adult. In the eyes of society, what he is doing isn't just wrong, _it's immoral_.

He does not return for the next five years.

/\

He is twenty eight when he returns.

The five years have made her even more beautiful and graceful. At eighteen, she exudes charisma and charm.

She doesn't know that he is in the audience watching her graduate as valedictorian. Boys trail after her like lost puppies, and she kisses one of them.

Her mother knows he is in the audience, but she does nothing to encourage the friendship. Her daughter is to born to serve him, nothing more; nothing less. Emotions do not come into play in their dynamic.

/\

He is thirty two when they run into each other (literally) on the street.

After coming back to Portland four years ago, he joins the Portland Police Department. Quickly, he ascends to the top of the chain of command, becoming captain.

He knows it's because of his _other side_. The legacy left to him by his mother has allowed him to extract information from criminals bought in much more efficiently than other detectives' techniques. It's also what has earned him captaincy.

She smiles and laugh as she apologises, but when she realises who it is, her expression flits between joy and angry faster than what the human eye could see, but not to a Zauberbeist's, or a trained officer's eye.

She backs away, apologising again before walking away.

He knows he shouldn't, but chases after her anyway, wanting to explain. They are both adults.

Perhaps this is a chance to start anew, _to start something_.

/\

He is thirty three (and three quarters), she exactly twenty three when they first make love.

He takes her out for dinner and dancing because it's her birthday. It is the first birthday they have spent together in over fifteen years. She has started her first year of law school, and they haven't seen each other in two weeks.

No one knows about their relationship, and the illicitness of it makes it even more thrilling. Her mother suspects something, and has warned him, but he doesn't care. He is carefree and happy, a side of which only she has seen.

They dance to Rimsky-Korsakov when she shyly asks him if she can stay over and _you know_. His heart skips a beat as he tightens his grip on her waist. They have not done much; he is waiting for her to be ready, since this is so new and foreign to him. But he is patient and willing to wait.

That night, in his apartment, as he slips into her and feels that barrier, he is happier than he has ever been, knowing she is his. The soft mewls she makes as he starts to move in her makes him want to consume her. He grabs her hands and pulls them upwards as he ejaculates, waiting for her to come down from her high so that he can ask her something else.

/\

He is thirty six when _he_ first joins the precinct.

She is twenty six, newly graduated from law school and working at a top litigation firm in the city.

Late nights at the office, tracking _his_ every move, he starts to alienate her. He is fascinated. He has never seen _one_ until now, and he wants to study it in detail.

He takes advantage of her loyal nature, ordering her to reach out to Vienna, _find out what is going on_.

He doesn't realise it yet, but the cracks in their relationship will start to appear.

/\

He is thirty seven, she twenty seven when Marie Kessler comes to town.

In his panic, he orders her to kill that woman in the hospital, but it is unsuccessful.

He knows at this point in their relationship, she is willing to die if he tells her too, and so, she is ordered to keep track of _them_in her spare time.

Meanwhile, he doubles his efforts to reach out to the Laufer community. He has never forgotten the night his mother woke him up at ten, running away from his birthright. He wants revenge on them, to avenge his mother's honour.

But mostly so that he can have more time to study _him_ without Royal interference.

/\

The moment the words come out of his mouth, he regrets them.

She makes a quiet gasp and takes a minute step back in disbelief.

He wants to apologise and beg her for being so cruel, but a voice in his head whispers _she's defenceless. You can't put her in harm's way when she no longer has her abilities_.

And so he doesn't speak. He simply leaves, hoping that she sees through his words and realises in his own twisted way, he is trying to protect her.

It doesn't work.

/\

When he sees her half a year later, she's changed so much.

She's become harder, much more resentful and angry.

Her mother's death discomforts him, and he wants to comfort her, but it is not possible, thanks to his own doing.

She's more manipulative.

He knows that she's baiting him when she tells him she slept with his half brother.

White hot rage boils over, but he shrugs it off even as images of the two of them flash through his mind.

He doesn't remember what snide comment he makes, but he does and leaves it at that.

/\

He doesn't know what's keeping him from making the choice to hand the key over, but instinct kicks in as she kisses him.

She is comfortable, safe even, as he returns her affections.

Before long, he is holding her as they both find satisfaction in each others' bodies.

But he doesn't know that her heart breaks each time he screams _her name_ instead of hers, or that she wants something that will link the two of them together. He doesn't know that she is playing it off coolly, delighting in his response to protect her from his half-brother, even though she's changed her alliances to the other side. She wants to whisper _I love_you to him, but he will never know. And he cannot.

/\

He sees her in Vienna.

But he is sure it is not her, because the frame is _all wrong_. This woman is pregnant, glowing in joy as she spreads her hands over her baby bump.

He feels a pang. He wonders what their child would look like if they had one. Would it be a she, just as beautiful and impish as her mother? Or would it be a boy, resembling him in his seriousness and dedication?

As he collects his thoughts, the woman has disappeared. He shakes his head to get rid of those other thoughts. He needs to stop thinking about her when it is so clearly obvious that she no longer cares about him.

From far away, the woman observes him for several more minutes before turning away. She has an appointment to keep.

/\

They are standing on the opposite sides when they meet again in Vienna with _him_ as leverage.

It is war, and he is there to rescue his prized object of study. He feels a stab of regret that she has decided to not choose him, but it seems to matter less and less every day.

They, the Scooby Gang, spend months tracking _him_ down to here. And now, facing his half-brother, he feels white hot anger at all of _this_.

There is no gun signalling go or someone saying it, but as he woges and runs towards his brother, intent on taking him down, he sees her holding a gun ready to shoot.

He doesn't know who she is shooting, but prays that it is not him.

A blutbad runs towards her, the one who is friends with _him_, he realises, but it doesn't matter because his half-brother is trying to rip his throat. He has to focus or he will be killed.

It seems like eternity, when it is only an hour that he and his half-brother are rolling around trying to kill each other when he sees an opening and goes for it. He rips out the heart, still beating, out of his half-brother's chest.

The fighting comes to a halt when they see his half-brother's mangled body. But he doesn't care. He wants to locate her, see if she's okay.

He ignores the fleeing as he searches for a head of blonde hair.

He finds her, circling _him_. Both are bloody and haggard, but they don't stop.

He wants to swoop in, but if he does it, then he is taking sides, and he cannot if he wants them both.

The blutbad is lying there, but he cannot tell if it is alive or not, nor does he care.

The solution comes from his ex flame, aiming a gun at her, screaming _this is for him you bitch_.

He doesn't think. He grabs her and pulls her to the floor before the bullet can hit her. He twists his body so that he lands on the hard ground and she lands on him.

She looks shocked that he did it. He wants to joke and laugh and tell her he will always be her knight in shining armour.

Except he _can't_. His chest hurts and he can't seem to breathe.

Her shock fades to horror as she sees the blood on his shirt and the expanding pool underneath them, seeping into the floor. Her pale hands are stained with his blood as she rips his shirt open to find the wound and to staunch the flow of blood. She can't seem to stop whispering _I'm sorry, this is my fault, oh god please don't die on me, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, we have a daughter, live for her so she doesn't grow up without a father, stay with me goddamnit, don't make me raise her alone_.

If he could speak (or breathe), he'd tell her that he only told her to leave to protect her, but the only noise he can make is a choked gurgle as blood floods his lungs.

As his consciousness fades, he sees the two of them at thirty three and twenty three, dancing to Rimsky-Korsakov in his living room as he quietly whispers in her ear _I love you more than my life_.

Perhaps it is fate, he wonders, as his heart slows down and tears starts to fall on her face, that after living a selfish life, the one and only time he's ever put a person's well-being over his own, he pays for it. Or this is his redemption, to prove to her that she meant more to him than anything else.

But it does not matter, because he is about to die.

_Finis._

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**A/N:** So I know that in the show Renard is probably not ten years older than Adalind, but I could only find Adalind's birthday, and the actors who play those two characters have about a ten year difference, so voila. If anyone's confused, just let me know in your review please.

And yes, review please! Responses will be posted on my webpage (and updated) on my blog, fireflyofhell dot tumblr dot com as they come.


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